Elders at the Gates: Ecclesiastical Problem-Solving in the Internet Age - Dr. Nelson D. Kloosterman

I subscribe to an internet discussion group called "CO-URC." Membership in
this group is approved by its moderator (a dedicated volunteer!) and can include
anyone interested in the United Reformed Churches. The moderator of CO-URC
explains to all new subscribers that

CO-URC
is one of several e-mail conferences maintained by The Christian Observermagazine. CO-URC is an attempt to provide timely communication, sharing
of common tasks, and increasing the effectiveness of the United Reformed
Churches in North America throughout the Lord's kingdom.

This
particular listserve (another term for computer discussion group) has been
going for a few years already. One need not be a member of a URC to subscribe
to this conference, and this conference has no official connection to any
URC.

An offer
of ecclesiastical cyber-counseling

On
November 15, 1999, all subscribers to CO-URC received an invitation to join
three new e-groups or internet conferences, sponsored by The Christian Observer
magazine but unrelated to CO-URC. These new conferences were designed "to
provide a place where a person could ask any question connected with the church
and the Christian life without revealing their identity to the world and receive
a biblical answer from Reformed/Presbyterian elders." Anyone in the world
may post a question with the assurance that only one person in covenant with
the sender and God will ever know the source of the question. That person
is the moderator who issued the invitation.

Both
the question (stripped of all identifying details) and "the answer"
from the panel of Reformed/Presbyterian elderswill
be posted for access on the internet. The archives (collection of previous
questions and answers) are accessible to anyone without membership.

Three
internet conferences, all designed to provide counsel regarding any question
connected with the church and the Christian life. In the words of the moderator
who was starting them, these conferences

will
provide an "unofficial" answer to time sensitive questions whereby an individual
or church can receive the combined wisdom of many elders in the application
of the Bible to the daily
life
of the church and her people. It also is our prayer that by having an outside,
and unbiased opinion available, further process through due courts of the
various churches may be avoided and harmony (may) prevail among God's children.

Quite
an offer, wouldn't you say? At first glance, this looks like an innovative
use of modern technology in service to God's people.

Personal e-requests denied

As I pondered
this offer of ecclesiastical
cyber-counseling more deeply,
the invitation began to produce
serious misgivings about this
use of internet technology.

To quiet
my concerns, I asked the moderator for the names of these "Reformed/Presbyterian
elders." Doesn't the Bible teach us that elders must possess certain qualities
in order to serve Christ's church? I wished to determine whether these men
do (I'm assuming they're men, though we're never told). "Please tell me,"
I asked, "who these counselors are." The moderator denied my request.

The
moderator defended his refusal by insisting on protecting, as he put it, "the
confidentiality of all concerned as if it were a consistory speaking together
concerning an issue." (Mark this spot, here's e-problem #1; we'll come back
to it below.)

I responded
by pointing out that he was confusing anonymity with confidentiality. His
analogy of a consistory illustrates his confusion: no church is governed by
an anonymous Consistory, though
a Consistory's
discussions may well
be confidential. My request, therefore,
did not infringe upon the
panel's confidentiality, but sought
only to lift the lid on its anonymity.
To this the moderator replied,
"I don't think I have confused anything,
just the pragmatics of the
internet world. It is a lid I control
and don't want lifted at the
moment. I think it will stifle input and
not in the best interest of
the
service
I envision, and how it will
work." (Again, mark this spot, because
now we've located e-problem
#2, version 1.)

Because
these new internet conferences
would be: providing advice on church matters, I also asked the moderator what
church orders or book(s) of polity would be used to advise those seeking counsel.
Here, again, anonymity rules. Protecting the identity of those seeking advice
requires these "Reformed/Presbyterian elders" to avoid reference to specific
polity rules, and thus to disregard any ecclesiastically sanctioned " procedures
which have been designed specifically for resolving problems in the church.
(Here's e-problem #2, version 2.)

The
"pudding" of
ecclesiastical
cyber-counseling

"The
proof of the pudding," they say, "is in the eating thereof." So as I prepared
this article, I decided to visit the website where, at this date, two requests
for advice and their corresponding replies have been publicly posted in full,
under the conference title "Reformed answers."

Both
requests involve cases of sexual misconduct, and both seek advice about how
the Consistory in each case should respond. One of these cases involves a
Consistory member who left his office because of his sin. The other question
apparently comes from a Consistory, but there is no indication that these
elders have consulted with church visitors or classical advisors, a procedure
provided for in classic Reformed church polity.

Neither
response given by these "Reformed/Presbyterian elders" counsels the questioner
in terms of the
biblical requirements codified in the church order of any Reformed church,
which polity specifies duties and procedures governing the exercise of pastoral
care and church discipline.

Christian charity compels
us to allow for
the possibility that those who
have posted requests for advice about these sensitive cases may belong to
independent congregations with no connection to any broader assembly, and
thus no access to ecclesiastical advisors.

Moreover,
I can imagine someone arguing that, since people's relationships and decisions
today are so full of pressure and uncertainty, why shouldn't we seize the
opportunity to have a Christian, possibly even Reformed, equivalent of "Dear
Abby" or Dr. Laura
- and in cyberspace too yet?

In the
secular world, these poorsouls
write or call in their questions, exposing their problems for the entire world
to see. After listening
to Dr. Laura once or twice, we start to wonder why these callers don't talk
to their minister or rabbi.

Far too
often, the sad truth is that they don't have a minister to talk to. Even if
they do have a minister, their crisis hits on his day off, or when he's on
the golf course, or after 5 o'clock, when he doesn't "do counseling." Too
many elders don't know how to handle such requests because they've never been
shown or taught how.

So I
really do understand the impulse behind starting cyber counseling groups for
Christians.

Perhaps
we're facing, once again, a situation of ecclesiastical default. At any rate,
that's been the justification, for years, behind parachurch evangelism, parachurch
discipleship, parachurch Bible distribution. And now parachurch counseling.
As one of my college buddies put it years ago, "I like their way of doing
it better than our way of not doing it."

But
it's high time we quit being intimidated by the "default argument." Let's
quit surrendering acre after acre of the church's overgrown, under-weeded,
unproductive ground simply because we're unwilling to whack, weed, and water.
Yes, our churches are weak in many respects. We (not "the other
guys," but WE) need to fortify our obedience in areas of evangelism, discipleship,
biblical discipline, and officebearer training. We need to be built up, trained,
equipped by faithful Bible reading, Bible teaching, Bible preaching - all
for Bible living. There's enough default to go around, that's for sure. But
it's high time we quit letting abnormal realities direct our practice as believers
and as churches at this point-and start following ,the norms God has given
us
for
the church's pastoral care and discipline; the norms of God's Word faithfully
summarized in our Confessions and pastorally codified in our Church Order.

E-PROBLEM #1: meet your cyber-cousistory

Did
you catch the moderator's language as he defended the anonymity of his panel
of "Reformed/Presbyterian elders"? He wants to protect their identity so his
panel may function "as if it were a consistory speaking together concerning
an issue." I guess the fact that these people (men or women, we don't know)
are elders is supposed to encourage us.

Encourage
us about what? Must we be encouraged because now we
have a cyber-consistory providing cyber-counseling to cyber-parishioners?

Right
here, my friend the norm has
been violated. Minimally, theBible
teaches that elders and church members have a
relationship, characterized by responsility, accountability, and pastoral
service. Was the author of Hebrews writing about a virtual consistory when
he penned "Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they keep-watch over
your souls as those who will give
an account" (Heb. 13:17)? Overwhose
souls, pray tell, is this cyber-consistory keeping
watch?
To whom, pray. tell, is this "Internet consistory" accountable?

But
let's suppose we knew the identity of our cyber-consistory. Even then the
situation would remain ab-norm-al. Since the internet is a public forum, requests
for advice about church matters must be stripped of all identifying details-and
some details crucial to understanding the request will need to be changed
"to protect the innocent." All that remains is a virtual, unreal, vague, cyber-problem.
The moment you change the details and extract the problem from its real, i.e.,
ecclesiastical covenantalcontext, you've changed the problem. It's
no longer
the real problem. It has become a cyber-problem that exists only in cyber-space
for a cyber-consistory to practice cyber-counseling. This gives a whole new meaning
to kerk spelen; playing
church.

Rather
than inviting people to bring their problems to a cyber-consistory we must
instruct them to
the Bible's teachings
about reconciliation, rebuke, restitution,
and the like, as these principleshave
been pastorally and eclesiastically
codified in the polity
and procedures of church
discipline. Instead of taking the
problem out of its real-life context,
we should be bringing in
church visitors or classis advisors
who can meet face to face with
real people, who can talk and
cry
and laugh and hurt with and
be alongside these people. Giving
effective biblical counsel requires
apprehending the many nuances
and facets of a problematic relationship
or situation. And all of
this takes far more time and effort
than it takes to cut and paste a
bunch of Bible verses exhorting
reconciliation, punishment, or
rebuke.

E-PROBLEM #2: the pragmatics of the Internet
world versus church-sanctioned procedures

In defending
his refusal to identify his panel of elders, a moderator appealed to "the
pragmatics of the
internet world" -- a revealing slip of the key . It illustrates how internet
technology does far
more than facilitate our communications - it also shapes and governs communication.
(If you'd like
to read more about this, start with
Neil Postman's book, Amusing
Ourselves to Death.)

However,
the moderator's pragmatism is more deep-seated than a quirk about safeguarding
anonymity. Read again his vision: "It also is our prayer that by having an
outside, and unbiased opinion available, further due process through courts
of the various churches may be avoided and harmony [may] prevail among God's
children."

Now
tell me something: What is so wrong with following discipline and appeal procedures
involving a Consistory, classis, or synod, such that we need to pray to God
that we may avoid them?! I thought these procedures were put in place among
the churches precisely to offer assistance, to provide counsel, and to restore
harmony? Why does the moderator pit due ecclesiastical process against harmony
among God's children? Why does he assume ecclesiastical process is incompatible
with ecclesiastical peace?

I fear
that, though he may be well-intentioned, the chairman of this cyber-consistory
is being guided
by ab-norm-al realities. He seems to be resorting implicitly
to
the "default argument" once again. It goes like this: "Church courts/assemblies
traumatize and intimidate people. So we'll create an alternative, so they
need not endure suchtrauma." Translation: Forget trying to fix whatever
maybe wrong with ecclesiastical procedures; let's help people avoid
these
processes.

History
has shown, of course, that ecclesiastical assemblies and processes have been
aligned against biblical truth and practice. Leaders committed to unbiblical
teaching saw to it that church members (and Consistories) had no recourse
within these corrupted processes. Such ecclesiastical abuse has a long, long
history.

But
to the invitation that we avoid or abandon processes that are being implemented
by people of integrity, processes which in themselves are not defective, we
must reply: Abusus non tollit usum: Misuse does not nullify proper use. Past
abuse, by a Consistory, classis, or synod, of procedures designed to facilitate
reconciliation within the church does not justify abandoning these procedures
in a new situation. This is especially true when the conduct of a local Consistory,
whose members are men of integrity, lies near the heart of the issue-as is
true in both cases currently posted on the cyber-counseling website entitled,
ironically, "Reformed answers."

Before
and beyond the Internet

This
problem-abandoning ecclesiastically sanctioned procedures designed for pastoral
prioblem solving and being implemented by men of integrity-is neither new
nor restricted to internet technology. The medium of the internet is not at
fault. It's just that the Internet
affords a dazzling, powerful opportunity for running end runs around the church.
Already cyber-churches are being founded, inviting people to enjoy listening
to their favorite preacher via RealAudio as they sit in their pajamas munching
Cheerios on Sunday morning. And why shouldn't they, if they're unhappy, underfed,
and bored in their own real church? (Short answer: Just because we can do
something doesn't mean we should do it.)

The
Bible teaches that the marks of the true church are preaching the pure doctrine
of the gospel, purely administering the sacraments, and exercising church
discipline. In each case, it is the local church-specifically, the Consistory
of the local church, the elders at the city gates-that is responsible for
maintaining these marks.

It would
be far better, I think, if the chairman of this cyber-consisory were to withdraw
his invitation, dismantle his website, and await invitations from real Consistories
to visit real sites where the real problems need solving. It is the men on
these Consistories who are today's elders at the gates.

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